Christmas with St Matthew 5

10.
And there I was, one of the new twelve, eleven new brothers including my own, James, the brother I could hardly even dare claim. From a family that could scarcely look me in the eye, here I was: restored not only to my own brother, but given another ten. And away we were sent, compelled my the grace that had called us, taking up the cross we had barely begun to understand.

11.
Did he come to unite brothers and sisters, or to divide? My brother and I walked together for the first time in decades, but his own brothers seldom spoke to him except on the days when they tried to keep him quiet. And his cousin, from prison, sent him a letter while were on the road: “Are you really the one we should be expecting?” It was costly, following him. To those like me with nothing to lose, it sometimes seemed pure gain. But many sneered at us, and with time the sneers would turn more bloody, more brutal. But the babies within us cooed at the goodness he sung over us. Goodness, as John and I were learning, seldom took the expected path. Yet Sodom could rise up and be saved by it. I – even I – could rise up and be saved.